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Friday, 25 April 2008

"On Safari"

I was hoping that by now I would be able to tell you I had won something, but sadly the postman seems determined not to deliver any LWES, my phone remains stubbornly silent and my email inbox is filling up with little other than adverts for products that will help me to enlarge things I haven't got.

But despite that I have had a very busy comping week, searching for new comps to put in Grape Vine. I donned the pith helmet and made several safaris to nearby towns, calling in at all the major out of town retail parks along the way. I travel many miles each week in the search for comps, aiming to visit at least one branch of every supermarket chain every week, as well as a selection of retail parks and a couple of High Streets, ringing the changes each week so that between one issue of Grape Vine and the next I have covered just about every shop, superstore and garden centre within a 20 mile radius of home.

Some days I come home laden down with entry forms, in-store magazines and promotional packs, others I am empty handed. This week has been pretty successful both for me and for my "Elves" (a team of helpers from all over the country who help me to find comps which are not distributed well in my area), and I hope readers will find plenty that is new to them in the next issue.

And now I must try to find some time to write my own April tiebreakers - I'm finding that the fewer tiebreaker comps there are around, the harder it is to settle down to write them, so the standard of my entries is dropping due to lack of practise. (And if that should have been 'practice' please don't all shout at once!)